Brazil has done it! They just added the last piece of the puzzle to becoming free of the need to import oil. Between hydro power and ethanol they were almost independent already.

"RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil Apr 21, 2006 (AP)— President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, dressed in an orange jump suit, drenched his hand in oil as he flipped the switch Friday on a new oil rig that will usher in overall independence from foreign oil.

The start of production at the P-50 rig off Brazil's south Atlantic coast puts Brazil on track to produce as much oil as it consumes.

Silva showed off his oily hand to a crowd on the rig, a gesture imitating President Getulio Vargas when he created the government-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, in the early 1950s.

The production milestone coordinated to fall on a national holiday honoring 18th-century independence hero Tiradentes marked an end to decades of dependence on foreign oil, and fuel bills that plunged Brazil into debt when oil prices soared in the 1970s.

Petrobras said the huge P-50 rig will boost national oil production to an average of 1.9 million barrels a day this year, more than average consumption of 1.85 million barrels a day.
"It's an important date for the country, and Petrobras has every right to be proud," said Luiz Broad, an oil analyst at the Agora Senior brokerage in Rio de Janeiro.

As more offshore rigs come online, Petrobras expects to join the ranks of the world's net oil exporters, with production exceeding demand by nearly 300,000 barrels a day in 2010.

Brazil still has to import light crude oil for the refined products it needs. The country produces and exports mostly heavy crude oil, which has to be mixed with the light oil in refineries.
The net-exporter status will boost Brazil's trade surplus and help shield the country from oil-price shocks. Petrobras said it won't pass on the spikes in international oil prices to Brazilian consumers. Oil prices reached a record $73 a barrel on Tuesday

It's quite a change from the 1970s, when Brazil imported 85 percent of the oil it consumed, deepening a foreign debt that raised inflation to four digits and pushed the country to the brink of bankruptcy."
http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ory?id=1872655

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Classic American liberal

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"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

develop what has made Brazil self sufficient - alternative fuel but oil companies (and thus politicians tied to them) show no interest in it. The oil we can drill for would meet only a tiny fraction of our needs even if it was fully developed. The Alaska oil for instance has an estimated reserve of one year of US oil needs.

Nuclear, conservation, alternative fuels, new engine types, are the way to go, but our political leadership lacks the vison for it or are tied to oil interest.

Part of it is EPA regulations (Brazil also has strict regulations) but most of it is alternative fuels. Brazil and Argentina public buses run on duel fuel engines that can run on LNG (liquid natural gas) because places like Bolivia and Veneseula have huge pools of natural gas. Also brazil is the only country that uses gasahol (spelling?) and has gas stations only serving alternative fuels. The last reason is that the main company (petrobras) that control much of the petroleum is run by the government, so it is the govt not the market that decides what direction Petrobas takes.

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In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is the king
- Nas

free markets are always more effective than government run ones, it follows that the US should have developed alternative fuels long before Brazil right? (since they have government dominated oil companies and we have free ones).

Actually the U.S. free market is catching up in big way, Ford is coming out with hybrid-Escape, Honda has the hybrid Accord, and Lexus with the hybrid LS 400. Sometime free market is faster, sometime not. The internet wouldn't have made so many stride if it hadn't been for competition.

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In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is the king
- Nas

The free market is the foundation that trade should be built upon. But, un-controlled free market trade can lead to bad things as well. Pollution, destruction of environment, exploitation can be bad symtoms. There is also a place for the government to regulate the free market to produce outcomes beneficial to the overall good, that may not occur in a free market on a micro economic scale.

For example, if you read that article, the Brazillian military in the 70's saw the overall good and created an alchohol fuel system in teh country. That has allowed the current flex-fuel cars to develop. Sometime the overall good needs to be mandated by the government.

That could mean not drilling in ecologically sensitive area's. However, I am unfamiliar with the arguements for either the contential shelf or alaskian wildlife refuge. But it seems to me that at least in Alaska, the impact would be minimal.

Personally I think the US Government should mandate the flex fuel cars by requiring they be produced at some date in the future. Also providing grants for things like building alchohol production plants. Because alchohol is the way to get away from oil dependency.

that free trade is a good idea but in any case the information you note shows why government action often outperforms markets. Markets are short term focused, often it takes government interest to support long term solutions. And when it takes 20 years to be successful, not many marketeers are going to invest in it.

Not in the production of alternative fuel itself, very little has bee done.

We could also take away 75% of the vehicles we use make half our population live in slums with no heating etc..then we'd be self suffiecient overnight.

Put it in perspective Brazils "accomplishment" while notable isn't nearly as great as some want to make it out to be.

You need to take a step into a bigger world. Brazil did not get it's energy independence solely from drilling. They did the huge ITAIPU Dam which is considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world. They also use gasohol. Their regular gas is 10% gasohol. There other mixes are higher. We can do the same thing in the US with BIOdiesel and Switchgrass.

But I guess we are just the poor second world United States with second rate scientists and no political will. We can't even follow the example of another country, never mind actually come up with something new. We are pathetic. We deserve to be dethroned from our position of sole superpower due to our inability to adapt.

China will become the next super power within 30 years.

Brazil's Biofuel Strategy Pays Off as Gas Prices Soar

"PRADOPOLIS, Brazil -- Outside the cavernous Sao Martinho refinery, the air smells of molasses as a quarter-mile-long caravan of trucks piled high with sugar cane waits to unload cargo, signs that the world's largest sugar harvest is moving into high gear.

Such bumper sugar crops have often meant worldwide gluts, low prices and headaches for politicians in the more than 100 countries where sugar cane is grown, but not this year in Brazil. About half the cane brought here will be made into ethanol as part of a 30-year gamble to substitute fuels made from crops for imported oil.

As international oil prices soar, that bet has put Brazil at the forefront of a "biofuels" movement in which many countries view sugar cane, corn, soybeans, beets, cornstalks and native grasses as cleaner, money-saving substitutes for oil produced in politically unstable countries. Ethanol is higher in power-producing octane than most gasoline and can reduce tailpipe emissions of carbon monoxide and harmful particulates."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...061701440.html

ITAIPU Dam
"Peanuts"- a word often used from so called "economic experts" and representatives when it comes to Renewable Energies.

"Not sufficient", "unreliable", "not feasable", are common bias. ITAIPU shows they are wrong! Having more power than 10 nuclear power stations it supplies the second largest city on the planet with zero-emission electricity since 1984, still being extended until 1991. 26% of the electrical power consumption of Brazil and 78% of Paraguay are supplied by ITAIPU.

Located at the Brazilian-Paraguaian border and not far from the Argentinian border, the first step of the initiation was already in 1966 when the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Brazil and Paraguay signed a joint statement known as the "Act of Ygazu". By this a study and evaluation of the hydraulic resources of the Parana river (owned jointly by Brazil and Paraguay) followed.

On April, 26, 1973, the two gouvernments of the states signed a treaty "for the development of the hydroelectric resources of the Parana River" and founded "ITAIPU Binacional" (a cooperation with the legal, administrative and financial capacities and technical responsibility to plan, set up and operate the plant) in May, 17, 1974.
The construction work sarted in 1975, reaching its peak in 1978 with 30 000 people at work. Monthly on-site concrete production reached 338 000 m³. In total, 15 times the mass of concrete used for the "Eurotunnel" was supplied. The height of the dam reaches 196 m, its length 7.76 km. The lake created by this is 170 km long and contains 29 billion tons of water.

Unit 1 started to operate in December 1983. Electrical grid connection to Paraguay was established in March 1984, Brazil was connected 5 months later. In March 1991 the last unit (No.1 was put into operation.
The water intake of one single 715 MW Francis-turbine is 700 m³/s, its weighted efficiency is 93.8%.
Each year ITAPU generates 75 TWh of electricity and avoids 67.5 million tons of carbondioxide emissions - compared to coal power plants"
http://www.solar.coppe.ufrj.br/itaipu.html

http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/Modern/itaipu.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1007/p05s01-woam.html

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Classic American liberal